Tuesday

Hey, this is like reading St. Elmo's Fire... in comic book form.

Some popular movies in the past have been based upon a relatively simple premise: take different people, all connected in some way, and then watch the ups and downs. Reality Bites, Singles, any John Hughes movies. There isn’t too much going on in the plot department but it’s a lot of fun to watch. This book was a lot of fun to read.

On the back cover of Box Office Poison by Alex Robinson, there's a quote that says this book is “completely voyeuristic. This is what it would be like to see your friends behind closed doors.” If you’re a young, twenty-something trying to figure out what you want to do with your life and whether or not you’ll ever find true love (or just get laid), this is the book for you.

Did you ever hate one of your friend’s girlfriends? Feel like killing neighbors in your apartment building who don’t know how to be quiet? Ice skate with a Costa Rican Olympic figure skater? Then you’ll totally relate to the stories in here. This is a hefty graphic novel, over 600 pages (and the only other graphic novel I’ve seen that had rivaled this length is Craig Thompson’s wonderful Blankets), but the story is broken up into chapters. I think this may have been a serial comic that was collected into a novel… I’m not sure. The book does go by fast, though.

Some parts are lighter than others, but there’s a serious thread that holds everything together. An aging comic book artist who got gypped out of the rights to a wildly popular character and his journey for justice. The epilogue to this book is a lot more sedate than the rest of the stories and made reading this book completely and totally worth it.

I know it costs a lot, but it is worth it. It’ll make a great addition to your graphic novel library.

If you would like to know more about Box Office Poison, check out the website.

Monday

Recently, all my television channels at home changed around. I hate it when this happens because the cable TV people never warn you (or, maybe they did and I just threw out that piece of mail without reading it.), so you get home and the channel you had left it on last night (Comedy Central) is now something completely different (Country Music Television). At first you watch, enduring the twang and sappy story line, waiting for punch line. Waiting for the screen to cut to Jon Stewart, who has a wickedly funny comment about how much country music sucks. You’re expectant smile slowly turns into a grimace and you suddenly realize the jokes on you- You just watched a country music video in it’s entirety, you fucking hick! Well, it wasn’t so bad. There was a storyline to follow, it was sad… it wasn’t so bad.

So then what are all the new channels? Where’s my MTV? Aw fuck, where’s the Cooking Network? Spike TV? Where’s the- wait, what was that? Bravo? We never got Bravo before. What’s this that’s on? A whole bunch of gay men… redecorating… making over this guy… who appears to be straight… Ohmigod! It’s Queer Eye for the Straight Guy! I’ve never seen this show and it’s all people can talk about. After watching the episode (and the one that aired immediately after), I realized this is my new favorite show. The guys are hilarious and totally nice, their make-overs are amazing… I just, I don’t know. There’s something magical about the show.

And thenInside the Actor’s Studio (with James Lipton) was on. Have you seen this? (**Note: Sorry if this is coming off as ‘behind-the-times.’ Like I said, we never got Bravo before. You only need to worry when I say things like, “Have you guys heard of indoor plumbing? It’s GREAT! Such a time saver.”) I thought Will Farrell’s James Lipton impersonation on SNL was a joke, something he made up. This Lipton guy is a total freak. I saw the Ben Affleck one and it went a little like:

* * *

Lipton: Affleck. What kind of name is that?

Affleck: It’s actually Gaelic and Celtic. It was originally spelled A-U-C-H-L-I-N-

Lipton: What is your middle name?

Affleck: Geza. I was named after-

Lipton: What sound do you love?

Affleck: When a woman-

Lipton: What sound do you hate?

Affleck: Can I just-

Lipton: What profession, other than your own, would you like to participate in?

You know how this week, people all over the internet were roasting the shit of out Neal Pollack? Did we really expect him to take it quietly? No. He responds.

Now, I have a question. Do you think, when we wrote, "But the roasts I read ranged from the sort-of-amusing to the nonsensical to the downright mean, and, in one case, jealous, bitter, pathetic, and near-stalker-like." Do you think that 'one case' was the one I wrote? Pathetic? Okay. Near-stalker-like? Sure. I just don't want a restraining order brought against me. I've never seen Neal in my life, man.

{Later, with half of the dishes done, Amy collects all compost to be brought outside. Trudges through knee high snow, up to garden where a hole’s been dug in the ground. Dumps out one container from fridge, rinses it out with snow, pushes container into nearby snow so it won’t blow away, dumps out another containers, etc, repeat six or seven times. Trudges back to house, wet, feet frozen, nauseous from old, rotten food smell.]

Monday

"Look at you, Neal, right now: sitting at your computer, wearing nothing but three-day-old, three-in-a-pack Hanes briefs with the elastic’s springiness long depleted, munching on a Suzy-Q for midday breakfast, leaning backward at 45 degrees, so the crumbs that fall on your chest can be collected and saved for later, silently wondering if that lukewarm wetness under your legs is currently pooling sweat or the unevaporated puddle of yesterday’s incontinence..."

Friday

With more than 830 glowing reviews, it's obvious this truely is a five star album. Just read a few:

"The words flowed forth from Hasselhoff's tender lips like sweet nectar from the mouth of God himself." -npasto

"I must confess I had never heard of Dipstick Heffalump before I heard a rare radio acoustic rendition of 'Hot Shot City' and from then on, it was my mission in life to track down any CD with the track on." -roger_mctodger

"You could punch a soprano in the gut and not get the same vocal tones that shoot forth from his mouth. Effortlessly, he leans his big head back and lets loose a cry that causes whales to beach and dogs to shed." -Bukakky Swallows

"From the first time I heard this album, I wanted to stab myself up the bum with a double edged light-saber." - A music fan

"The song 'Hot Shot City' is particularly good." (Nearly every who wrote a review. If you're desperate to know just how particularly good it is, click here.)

Thursday

But he actually shows up, and creepily follows any unsuspecting male customer who happens to have to piss at 12:30 into the bathroom.
Did I mention he drilled a hole in the partition between two of the stalls so he could 'peep?'

The maintenance people put a bolt through the hole, with metal plates on either side, to which he responded in permanent marker: "Was this really necessary?"

What is wrong with Louisiana??? Last week it was 'gay' being a dirty word that you couldn't say in school (even though the 'offender' was using it in it's proper context) and now you can't bring Advil to school. I understand if the student has all kind of X hidden in the bottle or is popping the Advil like M&Ms, she should be in big trouble. But if the poor girl is having her period and suffering from cramps, she should be allowed to take two.

What I want is all the MALE school board members to be struck down by the monthly curse. I bet you ten bucks they'd be singing a different tune.

Ooo, I have a full bottle of Tylenol in my bag right now. Who's gonna turn me in? Huh? Breakin' the law, breakin' the law...

P.S. I'm going to homeschool my kids. When I have kids. After I find a husband. Wait, gotta find a boyfriend first. Need to change my attitude before anyone'll take me. Hmm... note to self: start showering and going out more.

I finished reading Sunshine this morning while I was at my car dealership, waiting for new snow tires to be put on and that pesky right-front sway bar link to be replaced.

I haven’t ever read anything by Robin McKinley before but I know a lot of her books are retellings of fairy tales. Spindle’s End is about ‘Sleeping Beauty’, Beauty is about ‘Beauty and the Beast’, Rose Daughter is also about ‘Beauty and the Beast’ and Deerskin is loosely based on that classic fairy tale ‘Donkeyskin.’ While I’m a fan of fantasy and other books about fairy tales retold, I didn’t really flow with the way that the author wrote this one.

The main character, Rae (a.k.a. “Sunshine) is a baker and leads a pleasantly normal life until she’s kidnapped by vampires. The story takes place in our time but, let’s say, “in another dimension.” Vampires, magic handlers and demons are understood to be real and dangerous/problematic enough to the extent where there needs to be two police forces: regular old cops for regular old people matters and a Special Other Force who deal with the other (special) things. The story moves along quickly and McKinley really keeps the vampires frighteningly removed from the reader. Other stories often humanize vampires to the point where they become your new best friend or your best new lover. I know for me, I don’t want to hang out with or have sex with a walking, talking dead body.

The only negative thing I can say about the book is that there were a few points in the story when I became frustrated and was like, “Get on with it.” McKinley writes in a stream-of-conscious style so that anything Sunshine thinks, feels, ponders, notices, etc can go on for pages and pages. The one part I’m thinking of kind of went:

[Something exciting happens. Sunshine turns to head.]
“Sunshine. What do you see?”
[Fours pages of what she might see, what she might or might not feel if she saw something good or bad, what she’d rather be doing right now other what she’s doing, starts thinking about everything that’s happened over the last four months…]
“Sunshine?”
“What? Oh. Nothing. There’s nothing there.”

WHAT?! If it was nothing, why did I have to read four pages of inner monologue that Sunshine usually repeats every 30 or so pages? I expressed this frustration to my sister, who adores all of McKinley’s books and said, “That’s just the way she writes. I like it. You don’t like it?” No, not really. I guess it would like take a while to get used to.

All in all, this book is exciting, absorbing and a must read for those of you into vampire, werewolf and other supernatural books.

Wednesday

"At some point I kinda gave up on the pregnancy books and switched to childrearing books. So, since we know we’re having a son, I’ve spent the last few months reading books with titles like, Girls Are From Venus And Boys Are From Hell: Why You’ll Spend The Next Eighteen Years Cursing The Y Chromosome."

Remember when VH1 was easy-listening videos and more female-centric? Back in the day, it was all Mariah Carey (pre-hip-hopified), Celine Dion and Whitney Huston. Do you know what I saw last night on VH1? A special on Ol’ Dirty Bastard. He’d just gotten out of prison and the show was basically a documentary about him trying to stay off drugs and alcohol, meeting with parole officers and trying to make it from the studio to home before curfew. Just before one commercial break, a preview of what’s coming up showed ODB sitting on a couch in a dirty wife-beater, hollering into a phone, “Bitch! Don’t call me no mo. I ain’t givin yo mutha-[beep] ass any mutha-[beep] money. You hear me? Hello? H-hello?” It occurs to me that this is something that should probably be reserved for MTV. As I’m pondering this, sipping a margarita, a commercial for A Kid Rock Christmas (airing on VH1) appears. Maybe VH1 is the new MTV… Maybe all of Viacom’s cable channels with eventually show the same thing.

Giant plastic nativity scenes in the neighbors' front yard. Airings of Jingle All The Way on bottom-feeding basic-cable stations. The return of Lexus commercials in which unspeakably rich families playfully surprise their loved ones with giant-bow-adorned luxury cars. All that merriment and holiday tradition can only mean one thing: the return of The Onion A.V. Club's Least Essential Albums list, highlighting a year's worth of music that no one could or should possibly want.

Tuesday

Bookmunch reviews The Amulet of Samarkand. I feel as though I must keep stressing how utterly great this book was. Bartimaeus is a djinni (pronounced "jee-knee") demon and at one point in the story he was talking about how magicians can trap demons inside things; boxes and containers and the like. He even knew of one trapped for a while inside a lamp. ... Djinni (Genie) of the lamp? Get it?

Monday

Weekend Update

Early Friday night was spent trying to play Rage. I say “trying” because it didn’t go all that well. When I first got the game, all the directions were in German, so I had no clue how to play. I downloaded the English version but realized this past Friday that these particular directions were (a) too long, (b) too confusing and (c) the pictures of cards shown didn’t match those in my deck. Great. Jason, his friends and I gave that up and went on to play Carcassonne. We were about half-way through when my sister got home and was like, “I wanna go see The Last Samurai.” The guys obviously weren’t going to go and I was like, “Are you serious? It’s 8:45. The movie’s at 9:15 and it takes forever to get to Claremont.” But she was about to cry so I ditched the game and hurried out the door with her. We got there at 9:15 and got our seats just as the movie was starting.

The movie was okay. It was beautiful and sad and all that but the thing about Tom Cruise is that you don’t ever get lost in the character he’s playing. You’re thinking, “There goes Tom Cruise on a horse,” or “Tom Cruise is fighting with a sword.” I told my sister on the drive home: “Of Tom Cruise gets an Oscar nomination for this movie, I’ll be surprised. If he actually wins the Oscar, I’ll eat a pair of my underwear.” She goes, “Ewwww,” and I don’t say anything, but I was thinking, “Dude, I’d obviously eat a freshly laundered pair of underwear. Why did she automatically assume I’d want to eat dirty underwear?”

Saturday morning, Barbara and I braved the heavily falling and rapidly accumulating snow to bring Griffith and Gatsu to the vet’s for their yearly rabies shot. They were both petrified and catatonic on the way to the vet’s, at the vet’s and on the way home from the vet’s. I didn’t particularly like the new vet we saw. She called Griffith “fat” (not in so many words). I can call Griffith chubby if I want to, but nobody else can. He’s actually all muscle. He’s like a little pit-bull.

Barbara, Jason and I, trapped indoors, played multiple games of Settlers.

Sunday: Shoveling. Shoveling shoveling shoveling. We got 15 inches. There was lots of brushing off cars and waiting for the plow to come through. The thing I hate about plows is that when they drive by, they leave a wall of wet, dirty, heavy snow at the end of your driveway that you then have to shovel (after you’ve already shoveled the whole driveway). I brought the cats outside and they were pretty freaked out by all the white cold stuff, but they eventually got into it.

Then I played Caesar and Cleopatra with Jason. It was all right but I think we need to play more to get the hang of it. Also, we were both dismayed by the fact that sometimes a vote by the patrons is postponed because there’s an orgy that day. No kidding. You turn over the card and it says, “No vote. Orgy today.” This game is supposed to be for kids, age 10 and up. What’s up with that?

Thursday

Music Review

I don't know if everything thinks this way... I suspect it's just me. See, in my head, I win the lottery when it's at, like, 200 million dollars. With my newfound wealth, I'm at liberty to do all kinds of extravagant things like (the scenario usually running through my head) throw a huge, P-Diddy style bachelor party for one of my friends. It doesn’t matter what guy it is, there’s going to be hundreds of people there anyway.

This party is going to take a YEAR to plan, so I hire all kinds of personal assistants and go around hiring college girls to be dancers at it (because I suspect that veteran stripper-dancer women have a halo of invisible yet omnipresent “skank” about them). So these college girls don’t have to get naked, it’s not like that. They just need to be able to do cool things to music. Like… juggle. Or spit fire. In my mind, it’s like Cirque du Soleil, except not for children.

So this is how I decide what music or songs I like: Would I use it in the imaginary Bachelor-Party-to-end-all-Bachelor-Parties Party?

Propellerheads; DecksandrumsandrockandrollIt's okay. Starts off pretty strong but it doesn't seem too listenable to me. Everyone seems to know “History Repeating” song but I like “Better” the best. It’s a shame it’s only two minutes long.

David Holmes: Lets Get Killed“Gritty Shaker” is really good… once the song finally kicks in. Holmes spends so much time trying to incorporate NYC sounds and people that the music sometimes take a backseat. I don’t want to listen to some guy talking about what my sign means, I want to bop my head to music. “Rodney Yates” is good and reminds me of some Amon Tobin stuff.

Olive: Extra VirginThis is a woman singing in a soft, sexy, ethereal way over phat beats. It appears to me that if my favorite music isn’t created by two guys messing around with electronics (Groove Armada, Crystal Method, Chemical Bros., Daft Punk, Air, Death in Vegas, Underworld, Thievery Corporation), it’s two or three guys fronted by a female singer (Morcheeba, Supreme Beings of Leisure, Massive Attack). This is pretty good. “Outlaw” is fun. “Killing” is a highly listenable song and it’s got smart lyrics.

Basement Jaxx: Kish KashI don’t really like it. I want to return it. Alex, if you’re reading this, this crap purchase is all your fault. I’m never listening to you again. “Plug It In” (featuring J.C. Chasez) makes me want to claw my eyeballs out. “Lucky Star” (featuring Dizzee Rascal) makes me want to repeatedly step on my own feet whist banging my head against a brick wall. “Good Luck” (featuring Lisa Kekaula) doesn’t suck. I don’t know what kind of drugs I need to be on to enjoy this album in it’s entirety, but you can count me out.

The River City Rebels, eh? From what I hear, they think they're hot shit. Jason was telling me that one of them (the lead singer) was like, "I'm the best thing to come out of the Upper Valley!" I think I'd like to interview them for YPR.

The Onion A.V. Club doesn't give a favorable review of Vernon God Little Personally, I'm looking forward to reading it. After how great last year's winner was (Life of Pi), I have faith. Although that quote ("A scabrously funny debut" - Entertainment Weekly) on the front made my smile falter. I don't read anything Entertainment Weekly likes. They're not the most literate magazine publication around.

Tuesday

For those of you that don't know, my sister works at a little place called Stave Puzzles. She cuts puzzles for a living. Sounds stupid, I know, but I reap the benefits. In her free time, she gets to cut puzzles to take home and they’re awesome.

“I was concerned when the assistant principal called and told me my son had said a word so bad that he didn’t want to repeat it over the phone,” said Sharon Huff, the second-grader’s mother.

Marcus McLaurin was waiting in line to go to recess on November 11 at Ernest Gallet Elementary School when a classmate asked him about his mother and father. He responded that he didn’t have a mother and father; instead he has two mothers. When the other child asked why, Marcus told him that it was because his mother is gay. The other child then asked what that meant, and Marcus explained, “Gay is when a girl likes another girl.”

Upon hearing this, Marcus’s teacher scolded him in front of his classmates, telling him that “gay” is a bad word and he should never say it at school, then sent him to the principal’s office instead of letting him go to recess. The following week the school required Marcus to attend a special behavioral clinic at 6:45 in the morning, where he was forced to repeatedly write “I will never use the word ‘gay’ in school again.”

On a student behavior contract form that Marcus had to fill out and give to his mother about the incident, Marcus wrote that the thing he did wrong was that he “sed bad wurds.”

This is the kind of close-minded, ignorant, back-water thinking that really burns my toast. We much teach our children (and ourselves) to be understanding of, accepting of and loving of all people. What they should be more concerned about it Marcus’ spelling and grammer.

Monday

Hello. Hope you all had a nice Thanksgiving and slept off all that tryptophan. I took Friday off as well, so it was a nice long weekend. Thanksgiving itself was rather uneventful but it’s always a new experience having a meal with my Korean aunt, uncle and cousins. During dinner, Jason picked up the bottle of wine and went to refill his glass, at which point my aunt jumped up and tried to grab the bottle from him. A tugging match ensued, droplets of wine spraying across the table, until Jason shouted, “Fine! Just take it!” Then my aunt calmly refilled his glass and set the bottle down. Then my mother burst out laughing because it’s Korean custom that you should never pour yourself wine. Someone older at the table should always do it for you. Oh, okay now I understand. If that hadn’t been explained to me, it would have just been another odd family occurrence unquestionably filed away.

Something else: I noticed my mom doesn’t have a bread knife while I was at her place, helping to prepare the meal. I asked her if she’d like one for Christmas and she nearly dropped the turkey. You should never give someone you like a knife as a present. Never. It means you’re cutting the relationship, [cutting hand through the air in a chopping motion], ending the friendship. Okaaay, I didn’t know that. And out of the blue she says when I find a man I like, I should give him salt and pepper shakers. Why, I ask, expecting a profound, Confucius-like reason. Because, salt and pepper, they always go together. I thought about it and it made sense, but then I started thinking about how weird it would be to date guy for a while and suddenly say, “I have a very special present for you.” He’d open up a box containing a pair of salt and pepper shakers, frown, look at me and I’d mouth the words, ‘I love you.’ I’d look like a total lunatic. No, I don’t think that’d work.

Thanksgiving evening I went to see Timeline. Talk about an eye-rolling movie. I was entertained for two hours but this movie had some of the worst lines. The lead female character whines at one point, “I killed a man. I have to live with that.” She appears to be distraught over the fact but less than two minutes later, she’s slamming a sizable rock across a knight’s face. If she’s that blood thirsty, what was she complaining about earlier? Also, one of the archeologists, Marek, excavated a tomb in our present time and saw that the statue of the man only had one ear. This perplexed and excited him (because he’s a dork). When he went back in time, he got his ear chopped off. Immediately, he starts smiling and screaming, “It’s me! It’s me! I’m the one in the tomb!” My mouth drops open as I’m watching this. I can’t believe what I’m seeing. If it was me in his place, my initial reaction would have been, “My EAR! My fucking ear is gone! Where’s my- I can’t believe-“ Commence hyperventilating and passing out.

Let’s see. Friday nothing happened. I finally finished Eragon, which was only ‘Okay.’ Too much like Lord of the Rings. The Bartumeaus Trilogy, The Amulet of Samarkand was fantastic. I couldn’t put it down. It’s all about magicians conjuring demons to do their bidding, exact revenge, etc. It’s also really funny. Read it.

Saturday, somewhere around 4:00 am, I got sick. Really sick. I don’t think it was food poisoning but it was bad. Everything inside me came up and I couldn’t even keep water down. I knew the only cure was Gatorade. I lay curled in bed, shivering, until I heard Barbara get up. “Barbara,” I feebly called. She came into my bedroom to see what the matter was. I explained as best I could and said, “Gator-ade. Please, take all the money on my wallet and buy me as much Gatorade as you can…” She sent Jason out because she’s lazy and I spent the next twenty-five minutes dying slowly as I listened for the sound of his car coming up the hill. Finally, when Barbara passed by my room, I asked her, “Where the fuck is Jason? Didn’t he just go to the Mini Mart at the bottom of the hill? [Demon voice] I need Gatorade NOW.” She said she thought he went to P&C. What? P&C is like a million miles away. I sob quietly, tearlessly (because I’m so dehydrated) into my pillow. Eventually, I quench my thirst but spent all day bed, suffering bouts of shivering, sweating and aching.

Sunday was spent battling a migraine the size of Texas and saying over and over, “I can’t believe how sick I was yesterday…”